Accumulation roller conveyors have been available in various forms in which conveyor sections stop as loads come to the end of the conveyor and accumulate before being removed. One known prior system of this type has included successive sections, each with a set of load supporting rolls and each section provided with an actuating roller adapted to respond to the presence of a load. The actuating roller, when depressed by the presence of the load, declutches the drive to that set of rollers and simultaneously conditions the mechanism for a preceding section to declutch its drive mechanism when a load passes thereon. If no load is present on the first mentioned section, the drive mechanism will continue to provide positive driving action and the preceding drive system will also continue even though a load passes over it.
In connection with known accumulation roller conveyors used in slave pallet systems wherein loads are palletized on reusable pallets, it has been necessary to employ separate mechanisms for dispensing slave pallets to the accumulation roller conveyor and also for collecting slave pallets from the accumulation roller conveyor. Empty slave pallets are stacked in a separate device and returned to the input point where they are dispensed as needed. Such systems require a surplus of pallets and often times there is either a glut of pallets at one of the mechanisms or one of the mechanisms is starved for pallets.